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LPWAN FEATURES
LONG RANGE
The end-nodes can be up
to 10 kilometers from the
gateway, depending on the
technology deployed.
LOW POWER
CONSUMPTION
This makes very long battery
life, often between five and
10 years, possible.
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FIXED, MEDIUM- TO
HIGH-DENSITY CONNECTIONS
BANDWIDTH REQUIRED
802.11ac
802.11ad
802.11n
5G
4G
802.11a
802.11b
802.11g
3G
2G
Bluetooth BLE
WBAN
802.15.6
RFID/NFC
ZigBee
802.15.4
WPAN
802.15.4
RANGE CAPABILITY
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LPWAN
Network
Configuration
MESH TOPOLOGY
STAR TOPOLOGY
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Fundamental LPWAN
Concepts
Range Vs. Data Rate
TO ACHIEVE LONG RANGE IN WIRELESS
COMMUNICATIONS, YOU NEED A LARGE
LINK BUDGET.
In other words, when you transmit a signal, it
needs enough energy to be detected when its
received. Because a certain amount of power is
lost along the way as it propagates through space
and materials in between, there is a baseline
amount needed to transmit the signal properly.
LPWAN technologies generally operate with
about 140-160 decibels (dB) of total path, which
can add up to many miles of range in the right
circumstances. This is primarily achieved by
high receiver sensitivities. Receiver sensitivities
of more than -130 dBm are common in LPWAN
technologies, compared with the -90 to -110 dBm
seen in many traditional wireless technologies.
Technologies with -130 dBm can detect signals
10,000 times weaker than technologies with -90
dBm, so you can see how this is important for
LPWAN.
The slower the modulation rate, the higher the
receiver sensitivity can be. This comes down to
the Shannon-Hartley theorem, or Information
Theory, which states that the energy per symbol
or energy per bit is the main lever to change the
possibility of a message being heard. By slowing
the modulation rate by half, you are putting twice
as much energy into each symbol; thus, you are
increasing the link budget, or receiver sensitivity,
by double (3 dB).
Processing Gain
THE TECHNICAL DEFINITION FOR
PROCESSING GAIN IS THE RATIO OF THE
RADIO FREQUENCY (RF) BANDWIDTH TO
THE UNSPREAD BANDWIDTH, USUALLY
EXPRESSED IN DECIBELS.
Heres a simple way to think of it: imagine youre
sitting in front of a TV screen, and all you see is
static. That static can be thought of as a visual
representation of noise. Now lets assume you are
able to press pause on your TV remote, freeze
the static, put a transparency to your TV screen,
and color in all the black pixels until you had an
exact replica of the static at that moment. If you
1. http://www.sigfox.com
2. http://www.link-labs.com/symphony-module/
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Interference
BASED ON THE COMPARISON BETWEEN
NOISE AND BANDWIDTH, YOU UNDERSTAND
THAT THEORETICAL PERFORMANCE BETWEEN
A NARROWBAND CHANNEL AND A CODED
CHANNEL IS THE SAME.
But many people in the LPWAN space disagree
on which technology is better when it comes to
noise. (For example, this article demonstrates
Texas Instruments opinion3 on long-range RF
communication.)
3. http://www.ti.com/lit/wp/swry006/swry006.pdf
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4. http://www.telecomtv.com/articles/iot/mobile-operators-look-to-take-charge-of-iot-friendly-lpwan development-12760/
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Localization Capabilities
MEASURING THE LOCATION OF AN RF SIGNAL
IS DONE BY ESSENTIALLY CONVERTING
THE TIME OF ARRIVAL INTO A DIRECT
PATH LENGTH. SO TO MEASURE TIME, YOU
ABSOLUTELY MUST BE ABLE TO DETECT A
DIRECT PATH.
There are two things that go into the location (or
really the time of arrival) of an RF signal: enough
power to detect the direct path and enough
bandwidth to resolve the multipath reflections
from the direct path.
Imagine youre in the living room, and someone
is in the bedroom with a strobe light on. You cant
see this person, but you can see the strobe lights,
because the light is bouncing around and refracting
off the walls. In a discussion on network localization
capabilities, that type of light transmission would be
5. https://www.scribd.com/doc/273973068/UHF-Regulations-Sub-GHz-ISM
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Orthogonality
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Link Labs
Link Labs builds hardware that supports the LoRa
Alliance standard, but also developed a proprietary
system to provide more advanced functionality.
Symphony Link is the Link Labs6 LPWAN solution.
It uses the LoRa PHY (Physical Layer), but not the
standard LoRaWAN MAC architecture. It has a
range that is 100 times that of WiFi and, like most
of the other listed competitors, is far more costeffective than cellular networks. The Symphony
Link gateway is an eight-channel sub-GHz base
station that is ideal for industrial or municipal
monitoring applications, like building management7
or smart indoor and outdoor lighting8. The Link
Labs transceiver modules allow developers to
bring long-range communications to their devices.
These devices operate in the 915 MHz ISM band,
and they are ETSI certified for use in the 868 MHz
band.
POSITIVES
Many miles of range are possible due to high
sensitivity (up to -137 dBm).
Flexible technology is capable of licensed
or unlicensed deployment from 150 MHz to
1 GHz.
Most sophisticated MAC functionality.
CONSIDERATIONS
Requires LoRa chipsets and Symphony
Link-specific software.
6. http://www.link-labs.com
7. http://www.link-labs.com/iot-solutions/enterprise/
8. http://www.link-labs.com/smart-lighting/
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Nwave
Nwave8 runs off an ultra narrowband (UNB) radio,
which operates in sub-1 GHz ISM bands. Like
Link Labs, it operates a star topology, allowing
for direct base station communication. Nwave
has what it brands as advanced demodulation
techniques, which are meant to allow its network
to coexist with other radio technologies without
additional noise.
POSITIVES
Similar to Sigfox, with a better MAC-layer
implementation.
CONSIDERATIONS
Less is known about this technology.
POSITIVES
Very good technology stack.
Very high capacity.
Good commercial traction.
CONSIDERATIONS
It uses 2.4 GHz, a band with a lot more
interference.
Propagation loss is significantly more at
its higher frequency.
Its underlying technology takes much more
processing power (and thus more actual
power), so its not as well suited for
battery-powered applications.
8. http://www.nwave.io
9. http://www.ingenu.com
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Sigfox
Sigfox10 sets up antennas on towers (like a cell
phone company) and receives data transmissions
from devices like parking sensors or water meters.
These transmissions occur in the 868 or 915 MHz
bands, as we discussed earlier.
Sigfoxs wireless systems send very small
amounts of data (12 bytes) very slowly (300 baud)
using BPSK. The long-range capabilities of Sigfox
are accomplished as a result of very long and very
slow messages. As mentioned above, Information
Theory states that the slower you transmit a
message, the easier it is to hear.
This technology is a good fit for any application
that needs to send small, infrequent bursts of
data. Things like basic alarm systems, location
monitoring, and simple metering are all examples
of one-way systems that might make sense for
this network. In these networks, the signal is
typically sent a few times to ensure the message
goes through. While this works, there are some
limitations, such as shorter battery life for batterypowered applications. Sigfox announced an
upgrade to its original system in 2015 that allows
for guaranteed message acknowledgment for up
to four messages a day.
POSITIVES
Sigfox has gained a lot of traction in the
LPWAN space, and its deploying in a lot of
areas.
It has a good ecosystem of radio vendors,
like Texas Instruments, Silicon Labs, Axom,
and others that support its technology.
CONSIDERATIONS
Currently, Sigfox offers limited traffic
profiles, which cause download traffic
to be constrained.
This limits the end user to 15 bytes of traffic
at a time with about 10 messages and only
four acknowledgements a day. So, its aimed
at very simple devices, which would be
insufficient for some companies.
The company has faced challenges in
moving its technology into the U.S. market.
Under FCC Part 15, the maximum time a
transmission can be on the air is 0.4 seconds.
Since Sigfox transmissions last three seconds
or so, this has required a new architecture,
and it is likely the reasonit has been slower
to deploy in the U.S. than promised. The
frequency band in the U.S. is also subject to
much higher levels of interference than the
band used in Europe.
10. http://www.sigfox.com
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Weightless
Weightless11 is an open standard. It believes a global standard can
be achieved by allowing for open software innovation. Like the other
technologies here, Weightless protocols operate in sub-1 GHz
unlicensed spectrum.
POSITIVES
Its three open standards provide the end
user with more choices. Weightless-N offers
a simple one-way directional standard with
a very long (10-year) battery life and a low
overall cost. Weightless offers two-way
communication, but it has a shorter battery
life and higher network cost. Weightless-W
is the most extensive option, and it runs
off of unused TV spectrum, but has some
drawbacks (see consideration at right).
Weightless has an open ecosystem, meaning
theres more open software and vendors
available. It runs the Weightless Special
Interests Group (SIG), a nonprofit organization
formed to develop its open standards, and
test upcoming technologies.
CONSIDERATIONS
Its most extensive open standard,
Weightless-W, has a shorter battery life
(three-five years) and a higher cost for both
the terminal and the network.
Like Nwave, less is known about this
technology.
11. http://www.weightless.org/
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LoRa Alliance
Like Weightless, the LoRa Alliance12 promotes an open standard for LoRabased networks called LoRaWAN. This standard was developed by Semtech,
the owner of the underlying chip technology, IBM Research, and Actility.
Note: Link Labs is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance, and we use
LoRaWAN technology for customers when it is a good fit.
POSITIVES
Its three open standards provide the end
user with more choices. LoRaWAN offers
functionality that is very similar to Sigfox,
making it ideal for sensor devices.
LoRaWAN has an open ecosystem, meaning
theres more open software and vendors
available.
CONSIDERATIONS
The LoRaWAN standard lacks features
that are important for some customers,
including roaming, packetization and retry,
disconnected operations, quality of service,
firmware upgrades over the air, and repeaters.
In order to use LoRaWAN, the network server
software must be run in the cloud, which
requires a subscription from a network server
vendor.
Semtech is currently the only vendor of
chips, though it has announced an
agreement with STMicroelectronics to
manufacture chipsets.
12. https://www.lora-alliance.org/
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In Conclusion
Low power wide area networks will continue to
revolutionize the way companies do business by
allowing them to collect data and control devices
in ways that were economically impossible
before. As the technology companies described
in this report begin to help companies solve
their customers problems, were certain more
resources will be invested in the space, which
will lead to further advancements in LPWAN
technology and applications.
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1/8/16